Little work so far from stimulus grant

Mar 5, 2010 — The Bulletin

Kate Ramsayer

Mar. 5, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Almost a year after NeighborImpact found out it would be awarded $1.48 million of stimulus funds to weatherize 228 low-income homes, only 12 homes have been finished.

As of earlier this week, the Redmond nonprofit has spent about $87,000 on those dozen projects, according to Corky Senecal, director of housing and emergency services with NeighborImpact.

The weatherization work is mostly split between two contractors, one of whom said he hired more employees and bought new equipment in the fall, only to wait for the jobs -- and the funding -- to come through.

Senecal and officials with the state say the delays are due to a slow federal process.

Work on low-income houses didn't get started until December, Senecal said, because NeighborImpact had to wait until the federal Department of Labor set prevailing wages for the weatherization workers under the Davis-Bacon Act -- a requirement for stimulus funding that wasn't needed for previous weatherization projects.

"We all had to wait until we got the Davis-Bacon wage parity numbers," Senecal said. "It wasn't that the money wasn't available. There were some new pieces to this funding that we needed to get implemented."

The slow start to weatherization stimulus efforts also occurred across Oregon and the country -- a U.S. Department of Energy report released in late February found that less than 8 percent of the $4.7 billion awarded nationally had been used for improvements to low-income homes.

As of Thursday, Oregon organizations had finished weatherizing 472 of the 4,635 housing units the state was awarded federal money for, and had spent about $3 million of its $38 million stimulus award.

Oregon received about 20 percent of its stimulus funds in April, for startup technical and training costs, and then another 30 percent to allocate to the different weatherization organizations, said Pegge McGuire, community resources division administrator with the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Service, which is distributing stimulus money within the state. The federal government will release the other half of the funds once the state has completed a certain amount of the work.

The weatherization improvements have to be completed by March 2012, McGuire said.

The groups like NeighborImpact did not receive their allocation until around October, she said, and most didn't start spending that money until November because of the wage-related delay.

"That process took considerably longer than anyone anticipated," said Richard Matthews, manager of the energy unit with the state's Housing and Community Services agency.

"We had local (weatherization) agencies that started to put on crews, that purchased the equipment necessary," he said. "They could have started July 1, but there were considerable delays."

In Central Oregon, NeighborImpact was awarded about $1.5 million to do projects ranging from installing insulation, sealing air leaks, roof repairs and more for residents who make less than 60 percent of Oregon's median income. The money was to be used to weatherize 228 houses, trailers or apartments over a two-year period.

The organization usually weatherizes 100 low-income homes a year, Senecal said, and this year, with the stimulus funds, is planning to weatherize an additional 100 homes. More jobs are traditionally done in the summer, she said, when the weather is drier and it's easier to do things like crawl under buildings to install insulation.

As of earlier this week, the organization had spent about $87,000 to complete work on 12 housing units, she said, and also has about $200,000 worth of projects in various stages, where the homes have been audited and the work orders handed to the contractors.

Richart Family Inc., a Vancouver, Wash., company that has an office in Redmond, is one of the primary contractors for NeighborImpact's weatherization work. In response to the extra business from the stimulus funding, the company has hired four new people in its Redmond branch, said Mike Richart, a co-owner of the company.

"And we may actually be hiring a few more," he said. "This stimulus package coming towards weatherization has been a real boon for us."

Richart has worked on weatherization projects for Neighbor-Impact for about five years, he said. He was in the middle of a two-year contract for the regular weatherization projects, but had to rebid on the stimulus projects when they came up in July.

But once the company got the contract, Richart said, he bought about $500,000 in equipment, including crew trucks and testing equipment, in anticipation of the work -- and then waited to be able to start.

"There was a long, long delay," he said. "It's been a painful process getting started."

All Phase Weatherization has a weatherization contract with NeighborImpact for houses and apartments in the La Pine and Sunriver areas, and owner Joe Lorenz said the extra stimulus money has allowed the company to retain three positions and hire four more people this winter.

"It's been a slow process, but we've been able to put a few extra people to work," Lorenz said.

The weatherization work, like other stimulus-funded projects, was intended to create jobs, but some are concerned that it's not helping enough.

NeighborImpact received 10 responses when it sent out a request for qualifications, said Executive Director Sharon Miller, and selected nine contractors to do the stimulus work -- although most are for smaller bits of the projects, like plumbing or electrical work.

And the group has training options for contractors who are interested in qualifying for the weatherization work, Miller said.

Andy High, vice president for governmental affairs with the Central Oregon Builders Association, said he hasn't heard any specific complaints about the bidding process for the weatherization stimulus projects, but that in general many contractors are concerned that the federal regulations associated with the stimulus make it hard for smaller businesses to be successful bidders.

"People are definitely feeling it's not creating enough jobs," he said. "Requirements are so restrictive that the smaller guy can't meet them."

Bidders often have to put up bonds for projects, and pay the federally set prevailing wage, which can be prohibitive for many companies, he said. More money might get into the hands of local small businesses if the money was instead given to homeowners, who could then hire a wider range of contractors directly, High said.

"The homeowner's not going to have those types of requirements," he said.

Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or at kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0016-42614355